This world is a dark
place. Tragedies fill the 24 hour new-cycle and people die. You can be a Syrian
toddler on a sinking boat in the Mediterranean without a life preserver, you
can be a black man walking down the street in New York City suddenly impaled on
a sword helmed by a white supremacist terrorist, you can be caught in a flash flood
in Trujillo Peru and swept away in a landslide. So may tragedies I cannot begin
to categorize them. No matter where you are you cannot escape the
soul-dampening cruelty of this broken world.
Last Wednesday, my
commute was broken by several texts from my mother and my boss as both began
checking in, I had been in my own world of obliviousness to the high profile
shooting of a congressman and several aides that took place less than a mile
from where I live. On the year anniversary of the death of a British MP Jo Cox,
a high-profile shooting targeting national law-makers carried additional
weight. Last night, after spending a weekend unplugged from the internet and a
wonderful Father’s Day with my parents, I opened up my social media feeds to
news of the tragic murder of Nabra Hassanen, a 17-year old Muslim girl, who was
walking with friends between late-night prayers at the ADAMS Center Mosque. Her
body was discovered in Fairfax County, where I grew up, where my parents still
live, where I had just spent the whole day, oblivious.
This tragic murder
pierced through my Sunday night and comes on the heels of the June 5 double
homicide of young men in Maryland Shadi
Adi Najjar, 17, and Artem S. Ziberov, 18, shot in a car while sitting in a
cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood.
Even more so, this news called
me back to my first month working at KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human
Rights. In February 2015 hatred took the lives of three beautiful, intelligent
young adults full of potential: Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor
Mohammad, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.
As a Christian, I
believe that this world is irrevocably broken and can only be saved by
redemption through God and Jesus. As a coworker and friend of several Muslims
who are fasting this month during Ramadan, their devotion and prayer to God inspires
me on my own faith journey. As an American who works in D.C., I am in the
process of examining my own core values, questioning our nations’ historic
narrative as is the freedom and I believe obligation of every citizen of this
nation. As an attorney providing direct
representation to survivors of domestic violence I see firsthand the impact of
small, unspoken, unceremonious tragedies that take place privately but affect
all life publicly.
The newsworthy
“high-profile” cases of tragedy can put stark relief on the relative privilege
those of us who are not surrounded by violence carry. While we glaze over things that don’t
directly affect us, when violence pierces through the façade of daily peace, it
shakes us. But more piercing are those “smaller” less public, and more intimate
intrusions of cruelty, violence and evil. The ones that happen in our own
backyard, in suburban neighborhoods, walking on a sidewalk from an IHOP to a
mosque on a path that was supposed to be safe.
Even more disheartening
is that after each act of violence, it is not long before the story is already
twisted and hammered and chiseled into something personally tailored to fit
personal crusades or beliefs. Already pundits are focusing in on the ethnicity
of the suspect alleged to have murdered Nabra, pitting one minority against the
other. After the Wednesday shooting, I watched the gun control debate explode once again on Twitter. The toxicity
and vitriol that exists beneath the surface of each of us waiting for an
outrage outlet is so caustic that the moment we are shocked by a tragedy it
bursts through any outlet: conversations, the news, and certainly social media.
While I certainly can get swept up in
the compulsion to say something, anything, in reaction to tragedy, I’m
beginning to understand that beyond a simple message of shared sadness and
comfort, silence is often the best option.
For any tragedy, there
needs to be space for those people involved to heal. Grief affects everyone in
their own way and it is not for us in the peanut gallery to utilize someone’s
hurt for publicity’s gain. Those of us not directly involved need to withhold
judgment and agendas and just let people mourn and be sad and recover before
twisting their grief into a convenient politically-minded narrative. Sure, we
can have conversations about it especially to speak out against hate, but those
talks should be free from critical commentary, hurtful hypotheticals, and moral
judgements about what people might deserve. Because the truth is, only God’s
mercy prevents any of us from getting what we deserve.
The month of Ramadan for
many Muslims reveals how in His mercy, God provides, just as the time of Lent
or Yom Kippur reveals something similar to Christians or Jews. In this broken
world, each tragedy reveals how we need God so much. Those committing these
atrocities are just exposing who we all are if we don't have love, if we don’t
have God; the dark twisty parts of being human where we desperately need God's
light. Only His love can illuminate this dark world in any meaningful way.
jules bitz 
Ramona Falls 
